80 Million Mobile WiMAX subscribers by 2013?

With WiMAX entering a market that is saturated with networks, applications, user devices, etc. there is considerable scepticism about its growth prospects and the role it will play.  Each forecast about the expansion of WiMAX needs to be tempered with the ground realities of the complex factors at play.  For instance, the departure of Sprint’s CEO and the reversal of the Sprint/Clearwire JV are bound to slow down Sprint’s rollout in US.  While the 3.5GHz usage is beset with coverage problems, the 2.5GHz usage is troubled by ’radio spectrum politics’.

Juniper Research has just released a report that forecasts that Mobile WiMAX 802.16e will begin to take off over the 2010-2013 period, exceeding 80 million mobile subscribers globally by 2013.

Report author Howard Wilcox said: 

“We are seeing more and more Mobile WiMAX 802.16e trials and network contracts – over 50 have been announced so far in 2007 alone: the market is very active in all regions of the world. We anticipate that mobile usage will develop after initial demand for fixed and portable services – WiMAX 802.16e is a flexible platform that can operate in all three modes of usage. Mobile WiMAX will represent a single digit proportion of the global mobile broadband base by 2013. This will be a tremendous achievement for this new technology platform which has recently been boosted by the ITU’s endorsement of it as an IMT2000 specification.”

Some key points include:
• The value of Mobile WiMAX service revenues globally will grow to over $23bn per annum by 2013.
• The top Mobile WiMAX markets will be the USA, Japan and S. Korea.
• Over 10 countries will have Mobile WiMAX device markets in excess of $100m per annum.
• There are several wildcard factors could significantly increase the size of the market including the emergence of very low cost laptops, and adding broadband capability to a range of devices including portable music/MP3 players, and games consoles.

A recent Yankee Group presentation spoke about total WiMAX subscribers worldwide touching about 24 M in 2010 and 37 M in 2011.  Of this, North America would contribute small growths: 4 M in 2009, 6 M in 2010 and 7.5 M in 2011 (all approximate estimates).

An earlier release by Senza Fili predicted 54 million WiMAX subscribers by 2012 with growth being driven by emerging markets.  This includes 61% of them using WiMAX for mobile access.